


Love Me True

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst, M/M, Pining, Veela Zayn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7727356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's not easy, loving someone who's part veela. It's even harder being them. </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Snapshots in the life of part-veela Zayn and the boy who loves him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A collection of drabbles set in the same veela!Zayn verse, cross-posted from tumblr. Mostly angst and pining.

Zayn looks like shit.

That’s a lie, of course. It’s always a lie, because Zayn is physically incapable of looking like shit, but he looks—exhausted, is the word Harry has to use for it, as Zayn steps out of the fireplace, brushing ash from his hair. Exhausted not like he needs more sleep, but like it’s in his bones. It’s beautiful on him, of course, but it makes Harry’s heart ache.

“Bad day?”

Zayn lets out a sigh, tossing his bag onto the floor as he collapses onto the couch next to Harry. He doesn’t question why Harry’s on the couch in his and Liam’s apartment, just flops down, and motions with his wand so his bag is whisked away to his room before his head falls back.

“You could say that.”

Harry waits, keeps his arms open. He’d give anything to be able to cuddle Zayn right now, but he learned the rules about that by fourth year. Zayn’s fine with touching, but only on his terms.

This time, though, Zayn scoots over, tucks himself in next to Harry, and Harry can’t help his smile as he lets his arm fall around Zayn’s shoulder. “What happened?”

Zayn’s breath drifts against Harry’s neck. It smells rich and warm, even though it shouldn’t; Zayn smells rich and warm and irresistible, and Harry thinks he could bury his face in his hair and stay there forever, could—

“I almost got fired.” Harry blinks, draws himself back, out from Zayn’s spell.

“Again? But your boss is straight, we checked—”

“His wife came in.” Zayn’s eyes flutter closed. Harry swallows. “She—I know it was under control, it was, but she—I mean, I guess it wasn’t enough—” he shudders. “So now I’m on probation.”

Harry rubs at his arm, comforting. Touching him in what he hopes is a good way, not the bad ways people always want with Zayn, because they can’t resist his charm.

“Just probation, though!” Harry tries to grin. With his other arm, he flicks his wand, mutters “Accio blanket,” so that the blanket flies to them and Harry can tuck it around Zayn. “Not as bad as it could be.”

“Then,” Zayn goes on. He pulls the blanket closer around him, until he looks like he’s more blanket than man. His eyes are huge over the edge of it. “I had a date, with that mate of Liam’s, right?”

Harry’s heart thumps again. He remembers that. Remembers Liam insisting, that Zayn had to just try, that he was a great guy and wouldn’t care about the rest of it, as Harry sat there and tried to decide if he hoped it were true or not. He did, because he wanted Zayn to be happy, to lose the exhaustion and the slightly tragic look that always haunts him, but—Merlin, he wants it to be with him. That hasn’t changed since they were eighteen.

“Didn’t go well, then?” he asks, hopefully not sounding as hopeful as he feels. He’s a horrible person, he knows, but he can’t entirely bring himself to care.

“No. He seemed chill, but then…” Zayn shakes his head, his hair brushing over Harry’s shoulder. “He was looking, yeah? In, like. I can tell. When they’re looking ‘cause they can’t not.”

“It’s not his fault you’re beautiful.” Harry has to say it, because he knows he looks like that sometimes too. He’s not sure if it’s the veela blood, or if it’s just Zayn, the beauty of him inside and out, but sometimes he just can’t look away.

“No, but he got…” Zayn shrugs. “It was taking him over, I could see it.” He shrugs. “So I’m alone and almost out of a job, and nothing else is new.”

“Hey!”

“Alone except for you.” Zayn allows, smiling, and oh, there go the butterflies in Harry’s stomach. “And the boys, and all. But it’s not, like. Not like Liam and Sophia. And it won’t matter if I can’t pay rent.”

“If you can’t pay rent I’ll cover you.” Harry could probably figure it out.

Zayn snorts, though. “Couldn’t do that to you.” His face twists, and it’s—it just looks so terribly wrong, and still so terribly beautiful, like the cold jagged edge of ice. “Maybe I should just sing for my supper.”

“No!” Harry yelps, and Zayn’s eyebrows go up. “I mean, not unless you want to, but, Zayn. Really. I’d figure it out, we all would.” He just—it makes him sick to his stomach, the thought of Zayn using his veela bewitchment in the way he’d always hated, singing money out of people. It already makes him sick sometimes how people look at Zayn, the stories Zayn tells with an offhand shrug about how he was almost kidnapped as a child, how people would touch him. He can’t bear the thought of Zayn opening himself up for more of that.

Zayn blinks, his brows coming together. “Are you—it hasn’t caught you, has it?”

It’s Harry’s turn to snort now. “People can want to do nice things for you without being compelled, you know.”

“I guess.” Zayn doesn’t look entirely like he believes it, and that breaks Harry’s heart every time, even before he fell for Zayn. How astonished he’d be when one of the boys did something nice for him. “You’re sure, though?”

“Yes.” Harry can say it with absolute certainty. They don’t talk about it, that one time fifth year, when Zayn had been off-guard and tired, when Harry had been feeling sad and alone, and Harry had just looked and—it had been terrifying, in retrospect, how Zayn had glowed, had taken up every bit of his mind, how Harry had been ready to do anything for Zayn, would have dropped to his knees or offered himself up on a silver platter or jumped out a window just so Zayn would look at him. How Zayn could have asked him to do anything and he wouldn’t have hesitated. He's had tastes of that since then, gotten caught by the edges of it when Zayn's control is slipping, and he knows what it feels like, to drown in Zayn.  

This is different. He knows it is. He’s still himself, he’s not going to jump out a window or anything. But he’d still do just about anything to make Zayn smile.

“Now. Do you want food? Hot chocolate? You probably want hot chocolate.” It gets Zayn to smile, like it’s meant to, soft and fond, and there’s no veela magic in how Harry’s stomach flops.

“Soon, but.” Zayn’s cheek rubs against Harry’s shoulder. “Can you just, like, stay here? For a little bit?”

“Of course. Let me just…” Harry mutters a few words, waves his wand in the direction of the kitchen to start the water boiling. “Multi-tasking, there.”

“Thanks.” Zayn wriggles closer to Harry, so the blanket can go over them both. “It—it means a lot, you know. If I haven’t said it before. That you’re, you know. Real.”

Harry forces a smile. Or no, it’s not forcing, because Zayn’s right, it is real, and he’s glad he can be that for Zayn, and he’s so so glad he met Zayn, because he can’t imagine his life without him as a friend. Even without being in love with him, after this many years of that too.

“I know, it’s an honor being my friend,” Harry agrees, and Zayn giggles into his shoulder. He looks down, and Zayn’s hair is dark and his skin is warm against Harry, and he smells like everything good in the world, and none of that, Harry knows, is anything more than just him. “Love you, you know.”

“Love you too,” Zayn agrees, and presses his lips gently to Harry’s cheek, just as the kettle begins to boil. “Now get me my hot chocolate, please?”

Harry huffs out a laugh, but it’s probably best if he does go, he knows, because the words are sitting on the tip of his tongue, the thing he’s known better than to say for so long. His cheek is burning as he gets up.

When he looks back from the kitchen, Zayn’s sitting up, staring at his hands. The exhaustion’s back, the smile fallen from his face in favor of a weary sort of resignation, the same he had when they were eleven and Harry met the lonely little boy who came to Hogwarts never believing he could have friends, the same he had when Harry had talked eagerly about what his wedding would be like and Zayn had shrugged and said he’d never have one, because no one could ever love him for real.

“Here.” Harry holds out the mug, and Zayn smiles as he takes it, his shirt falling back to expose the elegant bones of his wrist. There’s a delicacy to him always, but it’s gotten worse lately, Harry thinks. All his edges coming out, the cynicism and bitterness, and Harry’s getting more and more worried he’s going to break. He wants to cuddle him forever, wants to feed him until the delicacy has given way to stability, wants to show him that people can love him for more than his siren spell.

But for right now, Harry sits down next to him, lets him cuddle close again. Someday, he’ll say something. He’ll convince Zayn that his love is different, that it’s real. Someday.  


	2. Chapter 2

“This is a bad idea.”

“This is a great idea, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Louis glares at Zayn, then pokes at his chest for good measure. “I came up with it, ergo it’s a great idea.”

“I should stay home.” Zayn pulls his coat a little closer around him, and Harry shakes his head. He knows why Zayn thinks it’s a bad idea, but it’s been a while since the five of them all did things together, and he doesn’t want Zayn to take it back at the last moment.

“Come on, Zaynie. It’s my birthday. I want to go out to celebrate it.” Liam comes out of the doorway with full puppy dog eyes on. They’re all in muggle clothes tonight, because apparently to Liam going out means going to a muggle club, which Harry thinks will be pretty interesting. He’s been to a few muggle places before, but never like this.

“But what if—”

“Honestly, Ravenclaws.” Louis rolls his eyes, then throws an arm over Zayn’s shoulders. “Don’t listen to him, Liam. We’re all going as soon as Niall gets his ass here.”

As if on cue, there’s a bang outside, and then Niall’s stumbling through the door, grinning widely. His cheeks are flushed like he’s already gotten started. “Who’s ready to celebrate?” he cheers, and holds up a flask.

“See? Someone has the right idea,” Louis announces, and lets go of Zayn to take the flask. “Everyone out. Time to go. Liam, drink more.”

Louis reaches up to hand the flask to Liam, then shoves at his shoulder to get him outside. Harry’s pretty ready to go, but he hangs back when he sees Zayn hesitating, chewing on his lip.

“Nothing will go wrong,” he tells Zayn, smiling as comfortingly as he can. “They’re all muggles anyway, they won’t know if it does.”

“Oh that’s comforting.” Zayn rolls his eyes, and Harry grins. If Zayn’s being sarcastic they’re probably okay. “I can cause a riot, but at least they won’t know why.”

“Don't oversell yourself. You can’t cause a riot,” Harry argues, and Zayn laughs. It makes his face light up, and Harry swallows down an entirely non-magical urge to kiss him, to do anything to keep him laughing like that forever.

They apparate to the alley outside of the club. It’s basically the same as a wizard club, though Liam claims that the lights are all working on electricity, and there’s nothing like muggle music. It thrums in his veins, and he can see it in all of them, as Liam takes over checking coats because he doesn’t want a repeat of the time with the zoo when Louis almost got them kicked out because he messed up the muggle coins.

“Are you even wearing clothes?” Louis demands of him, when all their clothes are discarded.

Harry sticks out his lips. “It’s muggle fashion.”

“It’s see through,” Niall points out.

“It looks nice,” Zayn retorts, his hand sliding around Harry’s waist comfortingly. Or Harry thinks it’s supposed to be comforting, because heat rushes to his cheeks at the compliment and the touch together. “Leave off.”

“Fine. But only because I want alcohol. They have alcohol here, right?” Louis asks Liam, who nods and leads them off.

It is fun, and interesting. Harry likes muggle clothes, without the heavy layers of wizard robes; he loves muggle music and dancing. And he really loves muggle alcohol, how many different kinds there are other than just firewhiskey. It makes everything better. It makes it easier to dance with people and watch Zayn a little way away, because maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s this place, but he’s clearly letting go just a bit. His smile’s bright and open, and he’s moving in that way he does when he forgets to hold himself back, when he forgets that every movement of his body is a weapon. It’s an attack on Harry at least, because he can’t look away from him, the sinuous grace that isn’t at all human. It’s an attack on everyone else too, or at least everyone attracted to men, because he’s gathering a crowd, people staring and moving close without even realizing why they’re doing it, just wanting to touch him, to take him home. 

And that means Harry needs another drink. Luckily he sees Louis heading towards the bar too, and so follows him into the scrum there. It takes a few elbows and Harry thinks he sees Louis set off at least one spark with the wand hidden in his pocket, but eventually they get to the bar and yell their orders.

“Having fun?” Louis’s eyes are bright like they get when he’s drunk, and he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet, clearly energized. “This is awesome! Why don’t we have shit like this?”

“Muggles,” Harry agrees admiringly. They’re so cool.

“Right? I got a telly-fun number too.” Louis holds up his hand, where there are numbers written on it. “Liam’ll tell me how it works. She had to leave, but she was hot.” Harry nods, encouraging. He’s happy for Louis, he is. But if Louis has one number…he looks back at the dance floor. He hopes Zayn’s okay.

“I saw him, he was fine,” Louis answers the question Harry didn’t ask. “Worries too much, like usual.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Harry argues. He takes his drink from the bartender, says the thing about the tab like Liam told him to. “Remember the festival?”

“We were stupid.” Louis waves a hand. “And kids. Now we know to always make sure someone can see him.”

Harry nods, because he knows that, knows they’ve figured it out. But he still remembers the fear when they’d realized they’d lost Zayn, and the look on Zayn’s face when they’d found him again, a bruise on his wrist that he’d dismissed like he was used to it. Nothing like that could happen here—there’s nowhere to drag him, for one, and Zayn can defend himself against muggles. But it’s easier to worry than to think about how if he wanted to, he could go dance with Zayn. How if he wasn’t in love with him, he could go over and dance with him and maybe deflect some of the intruding looks he’s getting, except he can’t because it would kill Harry a little too much. 

“Aw, Haz, don’t worry. Do you want to be kissed too?” Louis laughs, and leans forward to press a kiss right to Harry’s lips. Harry squawks in surprise, flailing a little before Louis lets him go, his smile evil. “There. Now everyone’s even.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Harry protests, but he’s tipping backwards in his attempt to get away, and he bumps into the guy there. The guy doesn’t go anywhere, because he’s massive, but he turns.

“Sorry!” Harry waves, despite his scowl. “Our bad.”

The guy snorts. “Fucking fags,” he mutters, as he turns back.

Harry winces, but he’s drunk and making a scene sounds like the wrong idea.

Of course, he’d forgotten who he’s with. “What was that?” Louis snaps, leaning over Harry.

It gets the guy’s attention again, and he straightens menacingly. He’s half again Louis’s height, and probably weighs as much as both of them put together, and they’ve got their wands but that won’t help if they don’t want to break any laws. Not for the first time, Harry curses Louis’s inability to let things go.

“Come on, Louis,” he mutters, grabbing Louis’s elbow. “Let’s dance.”

“I want to hear what he said,” Louis repeats, in his most dangerous tone. “Did you have something to say?”

“You heard me,” the guy rumbles, and Harry swears and tugs harder. They’re supposed to have a nice night out, not get into a bar fight that he’s not certain they can win. “Do you have a problem with it?”

“Yeah, I do.” He pushes Harry aside so he can stand right up to the guy. It’s almost funny, if Harry wasn’t fairly certain Louis was about to get his face beaten in.

“Gonna do anything about it?”

“Come on, Louis.” Suddenly Liam’s there, pulling at Louis, harder than Harry did. It makes Louis stumble back, still glaring but not as steady on his feet as he might be sober.

“Liam, he can’t—”

“Come on,” Liam repeats, stern, and Louis concedes like he usually does when Liam uses that voice. “Don’t ruin my birthday.”

“Fine.” Louis lets out a breath, and goes to turn away. Thank Merlin it’s over, and nothing happened. “Let’s—”

“Not so fast, fag,” the guy growls, ugly, then three things happen all at once. The guy starts forward and everyone scrambles out of the way, Louis lunges at him only for Liam to hold him back—and Zayn’s there between them and the guy, who this close Harry realizes reeks of beer.

“Hey.” Zayn’s voice is low and rough and Harry’s knees go a little weak at the sound of it.

For a second, the guy just stares, his eyes wide and glazed. “You’re so hot,” he sighs, and all his body language changes all at once, puffing out his chest. “Want to come back to mine? I’d show you the best time you’d ever have.”

“Hmmm, tempting.” Zayn’s smiling, and it’s the only thing in the room, just Zayn and his smile and his tight jeans and beautiful face and beautiful person and Harry wants him more than anything, more than life. Wants him to look at Harry just Harry only Harry only ever Harry.

“Did I ever say I used to be a baker?” he says, loud enough he hopes Zayn can hear. “It means I’m good with my hands.”

But Zayn’s ignoring him utterly. “Know what would make me really happy?” he tells the guy, who’s horrible and ugly and Harry’s hand is inching towards his wand. If he curses him, Zayn won’t be looking at him, he’ll be looking at Harry. “If you went away. I’d love you forever if you did.”

“Really?” his smile’s almost innocent, but Harry’s smile is better. He needs to curse him. Boils, he thinks. Something that will scar. “You would?”

“Of course. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeahhhh…” he nods enthusiastically, and then he’s stumbling away, his friends trailing confusedly after him. He’s gone and Zayn’s still looking at him, and other people are looking at Zayn and they don’t deserve to look at Zayn only Harry deserves that because he loves him more than any of them could he needs them all blind so Zayn won’t want—

“Harry,” Niall snaps, and there’s a hand on his arm so he can’t draw his wand.

“Niall they’re looking!” Harry tugs, but Niall’s not letting go. He pulls harder; he’ll show Zayn that he’s strong, that he can get out of Niall’s grip. But Niall won’t let go, and Harry flails back at him, desperate to get closer. “Zayn, I’ll take you—”

“Oh, _fuck_.”

And just like that it’s gone. Just like that, Zayn is Zayn again, still beautiful, but there are other people in the world and Harry’s blinking against that realization. What was he—how loud had he been? What had he even been saying?

“Fuck, babe, you okay?” There are cool hands on his cheeks, and it’s all Zayn’s eyes, hazel and sparkling in the lights and so very human. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you too.”

“I’m fine.” The words are a little hoarse, and Harry can’t tell how much of it’s residual from being caught in Zayn’s enchantment and how much of it is Zayn being a breath from his lips. 

“No, you aren’t–I told you this was a bad idea.” Zayn takes a step back, raising his hands palm out, like in supplication. He’s pulling into himself, all that sinuous grace gone in favor of stumbling into people as he retreats. Plenty of them are looking at him still, blinking in confusion like they don’t remember why a second ago he was their entire world. “I’ll go, I won’t mess up your night, you don’t have to–”

“Zayn.” Harry lunges forward, grabs his wrist. His skin’s too cold, even moreso than the usual few degrees he runs colder than humans, and he’s shaking a little. It could be from exertion, from using his magic, but Harry suspects it’s just the emotional toll–Zayn’d told him once, when he was halfway through leaving Hogwarts all together, that the hard part isn’t letting it out, it’s keeping it in. And Harry just wants that to stop. He hates it when his stupid weak willpower, how susceptible he is to Zayn, makes everything worse. “I’m okay, it’s okay.” 

But Zayn shakes his head, then he’s pulling his hand out of Harry’s grip and slipping away. Harry starts after him, but then it’s Niall who’s holding him back again, kinder now. 

“You know Zee,” he explains, gentle as he can be over the music that’s still pounding, unaware of anything else. “Give him a second.” 

Harry does, because Niall’s right. He takes the time to finish his drink, even lets Liam pull him into a dance because it’s his birthday and he doesn’t want to ruin that, then he heads back outside. If Zayn apparated somewhere, it’s going to be a bitch to find him–but Zayn’s still in the alley they apparated into, leaning against the wall, a cigarette at his lips. It’s a gorgeous picture, Zayn in his tight muggle pants and big jumper, the smoke curling out of his lips up into the city sky. 

“Hey.” Harry announces his presence before he moves forward. When Zayn’s startled sometimes he loses control, and that won’t help anyone. “You okay?”

Zayn shrugs. “Think I should be asking you that.” 

Harry sighs, and leans back against the wall next to Zayn, so their shoulders are touching. He must have cast a warming charm, because Harry’s pretty comfortable temperature wise, even if he hadn’t wanted to brave the coat check. “I’m fine, I told you.” He grins at Zayn, wide and open and inviting. “No lasting damage.” 

“There could have been. You were about to curse people.” Zayn takes another drag of his cigarette, his eyes closing. “I just–I wanted to help, yeah? Help you guys get out of a bad situation. But it just made everything worse, like usual.” 

“It didn’t!” Harry protests loudly, then softens his voice. “It didn’t, Zayn. Who knows what that guy would have done to us if you hadn’t stepped in.” 

“And who knows how many laws you would have broken if Niall hadn’t gotten to you in time.” 

Harry can’t exactly dispute that one–he’s right, Harry hadn’t even thought about the Statute of Secrecy, about how while Zayn’s bewitchment usually flew beneath the radar, cursing up a clubful of people wouldn’t have. But still. “But I didn’t. And that was just because I was drunk, you know it’s easier to catch me when I’m drunk.” 

“Doesn’t mean I should have.” Zayn turns to look at Harry, and he’s discarded the cigarette in favor of chewing on his lip. “I’ll go home, yeah? Give you space. You don’t have to talk to me until you feel comfortable again. And I promise I’ll work on it, I won’t make you go all…” he twiddles his fingers in the air. “I’ll figure it out. Tell Liam happy birthday and I’m sorry. I–”

“Shut up,” Harry cuts him off, and ignores his drawn in breath to hug him. Sometimes he can’t believe he’s in love with this stupid man, who thinks Harry cares so little for him. Who doesn’t understand friendship even a little, it feels like sometimes. Then other times Harry can feel him melt into his arms, bury his face in the crook of Harry’s neck and inhale, like Harry’s the only thing holding him up, and he remembers why. “I’m not going to avoid you.” 

“You should. I’m a danger to you.” Harry shivers, as Zayn’s lips brush over his neck. 

“And so is Louis, but I don’t avoid him.” Harry runs a hand back through Zayn’s hair. “I’m okay. All the…” he twiddles his fingers, mocking Zayn so Zayn snorts out a laugh. “Gone. You’re only a little inhumanly pretty now.” 

Zayn’s smile is wet and doesn’t quite reach his eyes and is beautiful. “I don’t deserve you.” 

“You deserve everything,” Harry tells him, and he doesn’t need to be bewitched to think it. To think that he’d give Zayn everything, if only Zayn would know how to take it. 


	3. Chapter 3

“This is bullshit.” Harry crosses his arms over his chest, and sniffles. “Magic should be able to cure colds.”

Zayn laughs, as he presses the back of his hand to Harry’s forehead. It feels cold, but Zayn always feels cold, so Harry doesn’t know if that means he has a fever. “Magic can’t do everything.”

“Well it should be able to make me feel less like shit,” Harry mutters. Zayn’s hand might be cold, but it feels good, gentle against his skin. Zayn feels good, just being here, perched on the side of Harry’s bed and looking so intently at Harry that he wants to squirm. He knows he looks like crap, unshowered with his nose all stuffed up and his eyes all gummy, but Zayn’s look is still, always, so intense. Harry happens to know that Zayn’s still beautiful when he’s ill, like some sort of Gothic heroine. It’s unfair that that’s the comparison Harry has to deal with.

“Only time’ll do that. And water.” Zayn holds out the water bottle, but Harry shakes his head. He’s warm, under his blankets; he doesn’t want to move. Zayn rolls his eyes, but he brings the water bottle up to Harry’s lips, his other hand sliding behind Harry’s neck so his head tilts. Harry knows his indrawn breath is too long, entirely through his mouth, but it’s hard not to, with Zayn’s holding him so gently. “Drink, babe,” Zayn murmurs, the water bottle against his lips. “Come on.”

Harry does without thinking. It’s not even bewitchment, Harry knows; just Zayn’s hands on him and the comfort from that. God, but he’s exhausted. Exhausted and shitty feeling and heavy and gross, and the fact that Zayn’s seeing it makes it worse and better all at once.

“Good,” Zayn hums, and sets down the water bottle. “I’m going to put something for you to eat together, yeah? You need anything else? I can bring you Liam’s computer for those movie-things you like.”

Harry shakes his head. What he wants to do is sleep, but he doesn’t think that’s going to happen, with his headache and his stuffy nose and the ache in his bones. “I’ve got my book,” he says instead. And, because he has to, “And you can still go to work, you know. You don’t have to stay.”

Zayn just smiles at him from the doorway, and there’s something in it Harry can’t quite read, can’t quite understand. It’s almost wistful, and if Harry was feeling better he’d make some sort of joke to make Zayn feel better, but he isn’t and he can’t. “’Course I do.” Zayn shrugs. “The nifflers can live without me for a day.”

“And I can’t?” Harry retorts, pouting. Maybe he can try for a laugh. It distracts him from how shitty he feels.

Zayn chuckles, and twitches his wand so the blankets tuck themselves more securely around Harry. “You don’t have to.”

Harry lets out a long breath when Zayn’s gone, then wiggles his arms out of the blankets so he can pick up his book, trying to distract himself from the way his stomach’s flipped over from Zayn saying those things. Zayn’s always done shit like this for all of them, though maybe Harry most of all, but that’s just because he’s the best person to have with you when he’s sick. That’s not unusual. But saying shit like that…that’s new, and it’s almost more painful than being sick, because it makes Harry wonder.

He gets a few more pages through his book, before it gets to be too much for his head. He’s taken as much headache potion as he can, but it’s not helping enough; his eyes are swimming. He closes them, but he knows he’s not going to be able to sleep. It all hurts too much.

“You okay, babe?” Harry tries to open his eyes, but he’s not sure if he does. Maybe he’s dreaming; Zayn’s so beautiful he wouldn’t be surprised. Harry’s eyes can’t even focus and he’s beautiful, his smile shining through everything, like it’s going right to Harry’s soul. “Asleep?”

“No.”

He can feel the book being removed from his hands. “Want to eat something?”

“No.”

“You’ve got to eat something.”

“Don’t want to move my arms.”

Zayn’s laugh is light, fond. Harry knows he’s being a brat, because he’s been told he’s the worst when he’s sick, but Zayn doesn’t seem to notice. Or care.

“Okay then. Just open your eyes. Made you this soup special, it’s my mum’s recipe.”

That does make Harry’s eyes open. “Your mum’s?” he asks. He loves Zayn’s mum, can see absolutely why she was the one a half-veela fell in love with, but he’s also had some of the food she’s made. It’s delicious, but…

“I took out all the spices that make it good, don’t worry.” Zayn’s grin is overwhelming. “Still don’t want to eat?”

Harry sticks out his lip. He does, sort of, but he doesn’t want to move. Ever. “I don’t think I can lift a spoon.”

“That’s okay.” Harry nearly chokes, but the next thing he knows Zayn’s holding the spoon full of soup to his lips, and okay, he’s feeding him. That’s a thing that is happening.

“You don’t—”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Eat.”

It’s hard to do anything else with the spoon right there, so Harry obeys. It is good, because Zayn’s gotten pretty good at replicating his mum’s recipes, and it’s neutral enough for Harry’s stomach to cope with, though he knows Zayn mocks him about that. And it’s just—Zayn’s sitting on his bed, looking warm and cozy in his sweatpants and t-shirt, his hair loose around his face, and his forehead a little drawn in concentration and maybe a bit of worry. Worry about Harry. Not that Harry wants him to worry about him, but it’s…it’s nice. That Zayn’s here.

Harry eats until he swears he can’t anymore, and Zayn puts the bowl aside. “You should sleep, now.”

“I really don’t think I can.” Harry tries to shrug, lets his shoulder fall down heavily. “It just…it hurts.” Zayn opens his mouth, and Harry shakes his head. “I’m okay. You’ve done enough.”  

Zayn smiles, and it’s soft and fond and that same sort of wistful as before. “It’s fine, Harry. I’m happy to be here. Or not, like, happy. But I don’t mind.”

“Still, you don’t want to risk—”

“Haz.” Zayn reaches out, and for a second Harry thinks he’s going to poke him or something to chide him, but instead he just pushes Harry’s hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. Harry’s head tilts into the touch against his will, or maybe he just doesn’t try to stop it. It’s almost—he could almost think— “Let me take care of you for once, okay?”

“But—” He doesn’t even know what he’s protesting, anymore. That it’s a burden to be with Zayn? That he needs taking care of? That Zayn should be here? “I don’t—”

“I do notice. How much you do for me. Let me help.” Zayn’s fingers run over Harry’s cheek, refreshingly cool. “Sleep, okay?”

“I told you, I—”

“Shush.” Zayn’s fingers press to his lips, then he starts to sing.

Harry’s heard Zayn sing before, when he needs to, but he’s never heard it quite like this. It’s a lullaby, Harry thinks vaguely, that’s what the tune seems to sound like, but he doesn’t understand the words. He doesn’t need to, because hearing it is enough, hearing it is a blessing, Zayn’s a blessing, because Zayn is amazing, the best person in the world, and he’s so beautiful Harry has to close his eyes because seeing him hurts, except it doesn’t because it’s all numb, all just a lovely fog for him to sink into. Zayn’s words, his voice, twist around him like his blankets, and all the pain’s going going gone, just that lovely feeling and Zayn’s hand still on his cheek, Zaym’s here with him and that’s all that matters in the world.

He’s mostly asleep when he feels the lips on his forehead, soft and dry and cool, and the murmur of, “Sleep, love,” and even if he wasn’t, he’s too wrapped in Zayn’s song to notice.

When he wakes, though, he remembers. Remembers, and wonders. Wonders if it could mean anything, or if that’s only him wishing for things he can’t have again.


	4. Chapter 4

When they were in fifth year, Zayn had had a crush on a sixth year Slytherin named Cassandra Simone. He hadn’t done anything about it, but Harry remembers how he’d acted with her, then. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention, because it was before Harry started remembering every little thing Zayn did, cataloguing it like his own private goblin’s hoard, but it had been so rare for Zayn to let himself show that much emotion that they’d all taken note. So Harry remembers how Zayn had looked at her, stared like she was amazing; how he’d acted when Louis decided to torture him and called her over to chat with them, the shy glances and solicitousness and how he’d laughed at her jokes even when they weren’t funny.

So he knows what Zayn looks like, when he’s into someone. And well. Harry sees how Zayn looks at him when he thinks Harry can’t see him. Hears how Zayn laughs at the worst of his jokes. Zayn had taken off to take care of him when he was ill, is always there for Harry when he needs it. Harry’d even asked Niall if he was hallucinating, because for all he knew the wanting had just gotten too strong and he was starting to grasp at straws. But Niall had agreed, something had changed, Zayn wasn’t treating Harry the same.

And that changes everything, Harry thinks, as he watches Zayn hum quietly as he messes about in the kitchen, far too low for Harry to hear. He’d come over after work to have dinner with Harry, just because, then had kicked Harry out of the kitchen so he could cook. That meant something. It had to. It’s basically a date, Zayn cooking for Harry, just the two of them. It’s definitely Zayn doing something for Harry, something he didn’t have to.

“Zayn?” Harry asks. Zayn stops humming, turns around. He’s wearing a sweater that’s just slightly too big, the sleeves pushed up to stay out of the way. It makes him look fragile in a way Harry knows he isn’t, in so many ways more powerful than any of them, who’s definitely weathered so much more. But he is fragile too, because Harry can also remember the big eyed boy he’d first befriended, astonished that anyone would want to be his friend. Can remember him curled into Harry on the couch, too tired to do anything but rest his head on Harry and let him pet his hair and ramble about nothing until he fell asleep. “Why’d you come over?”

Zayn shrugs, bites at his lip. “Do you not want me? I can go.”

“No, I want you here.” Want you here always, to never leave. Just stay with me. “But you could have cooked at home. Doesn’t Liam need feeding?”

Zayn holds up a finger, turns around, and leans down to put something in the oven. He just fits there, Harry can’t help but think, moving around Harry’s kitchen like he knows it. They fit like this, Harry sitting on the counter as Zayn cooks, laughing and joking. They fit. He’s always known that, he just thought Zayn never would, that there was no hope. But now…

“Well,” Zayn says a moment later, grinning as he straightens up. He shakes out his arms so the sleeves fall down, over his hands. There’s no magic in his grin, Harry doesn’t feel that tug, it’s just Zayn. “I’d rather feed you.”

Harry swallows. Merlin, Zayn can’t just say things like that, not if he doesn’t mean it.

He must stay quiet too long, because Zayn drops his head a second later, almost sheepish. “Sorry.”

“No.” Harry tugs at the lock of his hair next to his ear. “No, it’s fine, I like being fed.” He takes a deep breath, smiles. “Wine?”

“Yeah, sure,” Zayn agrees, and Harry hops off the counter to get it.

He wants this forever, is the thing. He wants these dinners with Zayn where they prepare it together, where Harry hands Zayn a glass of wine then moves easily around him to set the table. Where they spend dinner chatting about work and how Zayn’s actually managed to hold this job down for six months because animals don’t care about his ancestry and how Harry’s new co-worker has the cutest baby. He wants the time after they’re done, when they set the dishes washing in the sink and go to the couch, their feet meeting in the middle. The lights are dim, the fire burning in the grate, and it’s lit Zayn’s face, until he looks even more otherworldly than he really is.

“Haz?” Zayn pokes Harry’s calf with his toe. “You okay?”

He must have been staring. “Fine.”

“You sure?” Zayn’s eyebrows are coming together, and he’s looking at Harry like he’s the only thing in his world. It makes Harry’s heart beat faster, even without bewitchment, even after knowing him for a decade. “Tired?”

“Not really.” He shouldn’t say anything, he knows. He’s lasted this long without saying anything. Zayn being his friend is fine, its plenty. Zayn’s got enough on his plate without that.

“You sure?” Zayn leans forward, his hand resting on Harry’s knee over the blanket. “If you’re having trouble sleeping, I can help.”

“No!” Harry yelps. He can’t have that. It’s too—he can’t get reliant on it, the drug of Zayn, the way it feels when he sinks into his song and nothing else matters, like he’s in a haze and all he can see or feel is Zayn. His life is already that far too much.

“Oh.” Zayn flinches like he’s been hit, and bloody hell, he would take that the wrong way. Harry grabs at his hand before Zayn can withdraw it.

“No, it’s not—I appreciate it, Zayn.” Somehow, Harry finds he’s not letting go of Zayn’s hand, and Zayn isn’t pulling it away. His hand’s cold but dry in Harry’s hand, and Harry puts his wine glass down so he can hold it between his palms, try to warm him up.

“Shouldn’t have offered.”

“No, it’s sweet! I just don’t need it.”

“Okay. Just. If you need it.” Zayn’s not looking at Harry, he’s looking at their hands, where they’re meeting, and Harry recognizes the look in his eyes. He knows the yearning there because it’s what’s been in him for years.

He has to say something. He can’t not. Not if they’re both feeling this yearning, and they could both be so happy.

“Zayn.” Zayn glances up at him, through those devastatingly long eyelashes. Harry gulps. He can do this. He can. “I…I need to tell you something.”

“Yeah?” Zayn smiles encouragingly, just a hint of fear in the background of it.

“I.” Harry pauses. He needs to say this right, and it’s so hard to concentrate when Zayn’s there looking at him so intently.

“Not making me less worried, babe,” Zayn chuckles, but Harry can feel his hand twitch in Harry’s, can read the worry in his lips.

He doesn’t want Zayn to feel that, ever. He’s never wanted to make things harder on Zayn. He just needs to say it. “I think I’m in love with you.”

Zayn’s eyes go wide. “Sorry.”

“No, I know it,” Harry corrects. There’s no point in denying it, not when he’s known he’s in love with Zayn for over a year now. “I am in love with you, and—”

“Merlin, Harry, I’m sorry.” Zayn’s pulling away, and what? Harry had expected the disbelief, even a bit of the fear, because he knows Zayn and how he’s been treated in the past, but he wasn’t expecting the horror. “Fuck, I thought I had it under control.”

“What?”

“You aren’t in love with me,” Zayn tells him, and he’s getting up, almost scrambling backwards, off the couch. “You aren’t, I just—fuck, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry, I’ll go.”

“What? No.” Harry darts to his feet. He can’t just let Zayn leave. It wasn’t supposed to be this, Zayn was—Zayn wants him too, he _knows_ it. He has to. “I mean, yes. I am in love with you. I have been for years, which is creepy now I’m saying it but it’s true.”

“No, you just—” Zayn shakes his head. “It’s me, you know? The veela thing. I must have let it slip, I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t!”

“Of course I did!” Zayn snaps back, straightening. He’s beautiful even in his panic, and Harry feels it hit, the urge to prostrate himself before Zayn, or to hold him and make the panic go away, or to promise him the world because he deserves it, and he can’t tell which of that is him and which is magic.

“Why?” Harry takes a step forward, and Zayn takes a step back in time, holding up his hands like he’s warding Harry off. “Why can’t I just be in love with you?”

“Because you aren’t!” Zayn’s face is drawn, like he’s in pain, and he keeps on retreating backwards, away from Harry. This wasn’t—he hadn’t wanted to do this to Zayn. He’d known Zayn would be wary, known he would take convincing, but he didn’t mean to hurt him. Didn’t mean to hurt himself, like this. “Not really! You just think you are, then you’ll realize you aren’t and you’ll hate me, and I can’t do that Harry, I can’t, not with you.”

“I’ll never hate you.” He can’t imagine hating Zayn, not ever. “I swear. I know the difference between being bewitched by you and being in love with you, and—”

“You just think you do.” Zayn shakes his head. He’s nearly at the door now, and Harry wants to stop him but the way Zayn’s looking he feels like he might be cursed if he did. “You think you do because I wanted it and I made you. I’m so so sorry, I’ll go. I’ll get away from you. You can tell me when you’re ready for me to come back, if you ever are. I get it if you aren’t.”

“I don’t want you to go.” Zayn’s shaking. So is Harry, he thinks. “You want this? You want me?” He can’t help the warmth that goes through him at that, the butterflies in his stomach. He’s wanted this for so long. That Zayn wants it too is more than he could have imagined.

Zayn’s eyes are huge as he looks at Harry, huge and sad and apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

“I know the difference, Zayn. Trust me.”

“You say that now.” Zayn shakes his head, almost viciously. “All of you say that now, but it’s not true.”

“All?” Harry asks. He knows it’s not what he should focus on, but—but he thought he knew Zayn. He’d have noticed, if Zayn had a someone. If someone had broken his heart. “Who—”

“I don’t let it get this far. I didn’t think I had.” Zayn’s tugging at his hair, like he wants to pull it out, and Harry makes a noise in the back of this throat and reaches for him, but Zayn flinches back again.

“It’s real.” Harry tries to summon all the conviction he has. “Zayn, I know it’s real.”

“It’s not.” Zayn replies, and he sounds just as convinced.

“How can you know?” Harry demands. He’s almost angry, or he would be if he didn’t know where this was coming from, if he hadn’t seen Zayn curled onto the couch after a bad day, hadn’t seen him with a black eye from a jealous lover. “I know my own feelings.”

“Not around me.” Zayn’s bleak, matter of fact. “Look, do you remember Cassandra Simone?”

“Sure. You had a crush on her.”

“Do you remember what happened after?” Zayn asks, and Harry presses his lips together. He doesn’t, really. It had sort of seemed to end, and Harry had been busy worrying about OWLs and Quidditich.

“I don’t know, nothing? Was there an after?” It had seemed to peter out, if he remembers. Louis had stopped teasing, Zayn had stopped looking at her.

“I—I was a kid, I didn’t know, not yet. Not really. I’d hoped…” Zayn shakes his head again. He’s looking at his hands, his head bowed as if under a great weight. “We were working on Arithmancy, and I thought—it seemed like she liked me, you know? She swore she did. That it was her, that it wasn’t me, that she loved me.” He makes a face like there’s something nasty under his nose. “Next day, she found me and told me never to come near her again, that I’d made her say those things, kiss me.” Zayn lifts his eyes to Harry, imploring. “It’s what happens. And I won’t make you hate me.”

“I don’t.” But he can’t help it—he’s running back through his memories, through every interaction he’s had with Zayn. He knows what the bewitchment feels like, he’s felt it, and this isn’t it—but he doesn’t want to do that to Zayn. He doesn’t want to have a moment where he realizes it’s not real. “I won’t. I know what I’m feeling.”

“I can’t risk that.” Zayn straightens, and his chin comes up in that dangerously stubborn set he gets, where he won’t be moved. “I won’t risk you.” He takes another step backwards, and he’s at the door. “I’m sorry, Haz. I really am. Just—tell me when you think I can come around again. Or if I can,” he adds hurriedly. “If you think I’ve—if you don’t want me—I won’t.”

“Zayn—”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, then he’s out the door, and Harry can hear the pop of apparition.

Harry collapses back onto the couch.

“Fuck.” It’s loud in the quiet room. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go. If only Zayn wasn’t so stubborn, so prone to martyring himself—fuck, if only he weren’t so stupidly noble, not even a bloody Gryffindor.

But it’s not true. Harry closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and thinks about Zayn cooking in the kitchen, about them laughing as they ate. It’s not true. He’s in love with Zayn, and that’s him, all him.

He’ll just have to convince Zayn of that.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry looks up excitedly when Liam opens the door, but he doesn’t really have much hope. There had only been one of the bangs that meant apparation, and anyway, he knows Zayn too well.

“No, sorry,” Liam says, shaking his head. He drops on to Harry’s couch. The look he gives Harry is horribly sympathetic.

“Still nothing, then?” Niall asks, coming back in from the kitchen with two beers. He hands one to Liam, then sits down next to him. “It’s been what, a week?”

“Two,” Harry mutters. Two Zayn-less weeks. It hurts, not just because the man he’s in love with him rejected him, but because it means he doesn’t have Zayn. He’d been spoiled, maybe, but before they’d hung out every few days at least. He misses Zayn’s smiles. Misses his bad jokes and the way he left his shit all over Harry’s apartment. Just misses him.

“And you still haven’t come up with an idea to prove to him he’s being an idiot?” Louis asks. He’s sprawled out on the old armchair Harry’d found secondhand when he was looking to furnish his new flat. Whenever Zayn’s here, it’s tacitly but firmly claimed as his, whether he’s spread out across it, slumped with his legs spread and a lazy grin on, or if he’s curled up on it with his legs tucked up, a book on his lap. It’s supposed to be Zayn’s.

“No.” Harry groans. “There’s just no way to prove it, is there? I have to be talking to him to do it, and if he’s there, then he’s going to doubt everything I say.”

“You could send him an owl.”

Harry wrinkles his nose. “I’m not conducting an entire relationship by owl, Liam. We’ll have to see each other eventually.”

Liam huffs out a breath, but he allows it.

“Veritaserum?” Niall suggests.

“Nah, won’t work.” It’s Louis who answers. “If Harry’s bewitched he honestly does think he’s in love with Zayn, so it’ll say it’s true any way. What?” he adds, at the three skeptical looks. “I can know things! I grew up with a Potions master as my head of house.” They all keep waiting, and Louis finally makes a face and leans back. “Fine. Zayn and me were trying to figure out if we could use it to get out of shit.”

That makes more sense. Harry smiles, at the thought of it, but the smile quickly dies. He just wants Zayn back. He never should have said anything, if it meant he didn’t get any Zayn at all. Or he knows that’s not true; he couldn’t have lasted that much longer in that half-space, pining so desperately. But he sometimes wishes he could go back to being eighteen and just loving Zayn as his friend, especially now that he doesn’t have Zayn here to remind him how that would never last either, how him falling for Zayn was as inevitable as breathing.

“I wish there was some sort of magic detector,” Liam sighs. “Like, a metal detector, but for magic.”

“What?” Louis demands.

Liam blinks at him, his brow furrowing like it does when he’s not sure why what he said was confusing. “You know, something that beeps or something when there’s magic around. So Zayn could know for sure whether Harry was bewitched or not.”

Harry looks at Niall. “That has to exist, right?” Niall shrugs, so he looks at Louis. “Right?”

“I can’t imagine it doesn’t…” Louis hums, “I can ask around?”

Harry grins and jumps up to give Liam a grateful hug. “You’re a genius, Liam Payne.”

Liam hugs him back, blushing. “Nah, it’s just common sense, isn’t it?”

“Like I said.” Harry feels like he could fly. Like he could take on an army of Dementors and win. There might be hope. “A genius.”

////

It might be a bit of a dick move to confront Zayn at work, but Harry never claimed to be a nice person, and he knows perfectly well that if he went anywhere else Zayn would run away. He at least waited until the very end of the day, when the shop was closing; Zayn should be thankful for that.

He pats at his pocket, where the precious stone is, then goes inside. The bell on the door rings, and the man behind the counter glances up. “Hi,” He says, with a not very subtle look at his pocket watch. Harry can almost hear him dreading staying open later. “What can I help you with?”

Harry glances around. He doesn’t know how Zayn can stand working here, with the owls staring at him from the windows, the cats in their cases, frogs, snakes, nifflers, puffskeins…he likes pets as much as the next person, but this is a lot. He guess Zayn isn’t out front, so it doesn’t much matter, but still.

“Is Zayn in the back?” he asks, smiling politely. “I’m a friend of his.”

“A friend?” The guy snorts, not kindly. Harry doesn’t like him. “Like that freak has friends.” Definitely doesn’t like him. He wonders if his girlfriend met Zayn, or if he didn’t take kindly to being rejected, or if he just resents Zayn for being who he is. He’s seen all three reactions, and none of them make him want to curse the guy any less.

“He does, though,” Harry says, still polite. He’s not going to make Zayn lose this job too. He has a feeling that while the owner is okay with Zayn, appreciates his skill with the animals, she wouldn’t take kindly to Harry getting into a duel over him during business hours. “Is he in back? Can I go back there?”

He actually sees the guy consider just how badly that could go, then shrugs. “Yeah, sure. Go ahead. I’ll be closing in a minute.”

“Great.” He better get out of here. Harry nods cordially at him, then goes through the door he’s nodded through. It lets into a spacious back clinic area; the shop’s just the front end of the place, Harry knows. Zayn had been so excited when he’d gotten the job here, helping to rehabilitate lost pets, where he wouldn’t have to talk to anyone but could just tend to the animals. It had been perfect, it seemed. Harry just hopes the guy in the front didn’t give him too much trouble.

The hall’s long, with plenty of doors off of it, but there’s only one with the door slightly open and the light on, so Harry goes there.

He pauses in the doorway. It’s been two weeks since he saw Zayn, and just the sight of him feels like a healing potion. He’s kneeling on the floor, enough cats Harry can’t count them crawling over him. Harry’s seen him like this a thousand times, sitting on the floor for whatever reason, but just the sight of him—the elegant line of his back, of his neck, the dark hair, the broad shoulders and narrow hips, the way he coos quietly at the cats…Harry drinks it in. This has to work. It has to.

He knocks on the doorjamb to announce his presence. Zayn stiffens, all the easy relaxation he gets around pets or the lads draining out of him as he turns to see who it is—then freezes.

“Harry?” He scrambles to his feet, still clutching one of the cats, a massive tortoiseshell who glares at Harry like he’s personally responsible for everything that’s gone wrong in the world. Harry, who is used to cats looking at him like that, ignores it. “What are you—um, why are you here?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” Harry doesn’t move closer. He won’t be one of those people who encroach too much on Zayn’s space, as much as he just wants to hug him, breathe in the scent of his skin and feel his arms around him, because that’ll always be home to him. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah. I mean. Like I said, I just didn’t want—I didn’t think you’d want to see me.” Zayn bites at his lip. “I really am sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.” Harry takes a breath. “I love you.”

Zayn drops his head, so he’s looking at the cat’s fur. “No, Harry, you—”

“The first time I realized I might be in love with you, we were nineteen. You sent me an owl from Bradford with a picture of some graffiti that you knew I’d like, and I realized this was the longest we’d ever been away from each other and I didn’t want that again.”

“Harry—”

Harry doesn’t let him interrupt. “I knew I was in love with you on your birthday, when you turned twenty one? And we all chipped in and got you that jacket you wanted, and you smiled like—like you’d never expected it, like you couldn’t believe it, and I just wanted to make you smile like that all the time.”

“I—”

“I’ve been in love with you for three years, Zayn.” Harry does take a careful step forward this time, still a safe distance from Zayn. Zayn’s face is screwed up, and he looks like he’s in pain, which isn’t at all what he wants Zayn to look like, even if it’s always beautiful, beautiful and tragic, but Harry wants him to smile again. Wants him to smile at Harry again. “When you’ve been near me and when you haven’t. That’s not bewitchment.”

“You think you have been.” Zayn shakes his head, emphatically. “You’re probably just remembering with the veil of the bewitchment. It hasn’t worn off yet. I’m so—I didn’t mean to, Haz, you have to believe me. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. You just have to stay away a little longer—”

Harry sighs. He hadn’t thought the speech would work, but he wished it had. Wished Zayn could just believe him, when he told him he loved him. But he’d known it wouldn’t. Known Zayn had twenty-three years of knowing that no one could love him, and Harry wasn’t going to change that with a speech. He digs in his pocket, and pulls out the crystal.

“What’s that?” Zayn demands, leaning back. His eyes widen, and he clutches the cat closer. “Harry—”

“It’s a magic detector!” Harry waves the globe. It’s a pale green all the way through, a little translucent, like a smaller Remember-all. “Or it’s actually called something else, but that’s what I’m calling it. Apparently Muggles have a metal detector that’s like this? That’s what Liam says.”

“What does it do?”

Harry grins triumphantly. “It tests if the holder has magic cast on them. I just hold it tight like this—” He wraps both hands around the globe, and it lights up a neon green. “That’s what it does if I don’t have magic on me. If I had magic on me, it’d be red.”

“Haz.” Zayn’s smile is fond and sad. “You’re sweet, but things like that don’t pick up veela magic. It’s different.”

“No, this one specifically does, I asked. I think I really freaked out the salesperson.” That had been an interesting conversation.

“He could have lied, Harry, I’m not taking that chance.” Zayn puts the cat down, patting its back before he straightens. He runs a hand back through his hair. “This is for me as much as you, Haz. If I came home some day and the spell had worn out—if I had to see you look at me differently, like you hated me—it’d break my heart. I can’t do that. I can’t live with that possibility.”

“I know.” Harry takes a breath. This is the hard part. “That’s why we need to test it.”

“Test it?”

“Yes. You need to sing to me.”

“What?” Zayn actually does take a step back this time. “Harry, I’m not going to do that! You shouldn’t ask me to do that.”

“You have to. Then we can test the detector, and we’ll know.”

“Do you have any self-preservation!” Zayn’s voice is rising, and he throws his hands up in the air. “Do you even know what that would be like? I could ask you to do anything and you’d be happy to! You shouldn’t ask anyone to do that!”

“I trust you.” It’s the simple truth. Harry’s always trusted Zayn. “I’ve been caught in it before, Zayn. I know the risks.”

“I could fuck you, right here, and you’d do it.”

Harry bites back the response that he’s happy to do that now, because he knows it’s not the time. “You won’t.”

“But I could! But I—what if I did?”

“You won’t, Zayn.” Harry steels himself, then steps into the room completely, closes the door behind him. The cats are still milling around their feet, but they get out of Harry’s way as he advances on Zayn, until they’re within touching difference. He’s so stiff, so tense; Harry wants to touch, to soothe the tension and the fear. To assure him he can touch Harry, that Harry doesn’t care what he is. Slowly, tentatively, Harry lets go of the globe with one hand to tuck a lock of Zayn’s hair back behind his ear, his fingers brushing Zayn’s skin. It’s something he’s done a hundred times before, but he’s never felt Zayn shiver like this before, never seen Zayn’s lips part just a little, like he’s ready to be kissed. “Sing for me, Zayn. I trust you.” He smiles, just a little, because it’s too serious already. “Put me under your spell.”

Zayn’s eyes are wide, big and golden, but Harry knows him, and he can see the decision being made, even before he draws in a breath. Then he starts to sing.

It’s beautiful. Harry can’t make out the words, doesn’t even know if they’re English, but he knows the song is beautiful, more than beautiful, something more than music. Zayn is beautiful. Zayn is the most beautiful thing in the world, and Harry needs to prove it to him.

“I can paint you!” he announces, pleased. He’ll paint Zayn the most beautiful portrait he’s ever seen, and Zayn will see it and smile at him and love him.

“Okay, babe.” The song’s just humming now, around Zayn’s voice, but Harry can hear it in every vein, every skin cell. Zayn’s amused at him, and Harry’s alight with it, with pride. Zayn likes his offering, Harry can die happy. Maybe Harry should die now, because nothing will ever get better than this, than Zayn being pleased with him. “I need you to hold the globe, though.”

“Of course.” Anything for Zayn. He holds onto the globe with both hands, and peers at Zayn’s beautiful, glowing, astounding face for his approval. “I can give you the globe? I can give it to you. Do you want it?” He holds the red globe out to Zayn. “Here! I can get more. I’ll get you all of them, I—”

Harry’s oddly bereft when the song ends abruptly. He staggers, drawing in a ragged breath as he stares at the floor. He’s been caught in Zayn’s spell before, the sides of it, by accident, but it’s never been directed at him like this. Even when Zayn’s sing him to sleep it was less than that, or he was too tired to notice. Bloody hell.

He shakes his head, clearing it. There had been a point to that. A point and—and he can remember the red of the globe, the way it had glowed, when Harry was bewitched.

“Zayn.” He’s grinning, big and relieved, when he looks at Zayn, but Zayn isn’t looking at him. Zayn is staring at the globe, now the inert green. His whole face is slack, like he’s lost control of it, like he doesn’t know what to do. Harry cups the globe one last time, and watches the green brighten. “I love you.”

Zayn looks up to meet Harry’s eyes, and he looks—confused, most of all. Confused and a little plaintive. “I don’t…aren’t you afraid? Just because you’re not bewitched now doesn’t mean I can’t put you under whenever I want. Why aren’t you scared?”

“Because you wouldn’t.” Harry tucks the globe back into the pocket of his robe.

“I could, though. I might not even mean to.”

“You won’t.” Zayn’s shaking a little, his hands trembling between them. Harry catches his hands, to slow the shaking. “I trust you, Zayn. Can you trust my judgment, if you can’t trust yourself?”

Zayn stares down at their joined hands, and Harry knows that look, the way he’s thinking. Then he lifts his head, and his eyes are shining, a very human hazel but still so gorgeous. So Zayn. “If I ever do anything you don’t want, you have to tell me, okay? As soon as you feel like it might be bewitchment, you have to—”

“Zayn.” Harry cuts him off. He lets go of Zayn’s hands to hold Zayn’s face, cupping his cheeks. Zayn’s breath comes in, quick and hoarse. Fuck, he wants to kiss him. Wants to kiss Zayn until he can’t think anymore, until he’s dazed and bewitched by Harry. “Can I kiss you?”  

Zayn’s smile starts slowly, in the corners of his eyes, then grows until it’s taken up his whole face, in his wrinkled nose and his tongue pressed behind his teeth. “I love you.”

And there’s a bewitchment all its own, those words from Zayn after so long, and Harry can feel them in his veins and his skin, in all of him, in every nerve ending.

“Zayn,” he repeats, more urgent. “Can I kiss you, please?”

Zayn’s still grinning, and he steps closer, his hand resting lightly on Harry’s hip, so lightly Harry might think he was hallucinating it if he wasn’t hyperaware of every one of Zayn’s touches. “Yeah. If you want.”

“I want,” Harry mutters, then he’s kissing Zayn. It’s clumsy, both of them too eager to be smooth, but it’s Zayn, after so long. Zayn’s lips and Zayn’s hands and Zayn’s skin, and Harry falls into it, until one of the cats meows loudly and they break apart, breathless and laughing a little.

Zayn’s finger traces over Harry’s cheek, ignoring the cats for another moment. “I love you,” he repeats, sounding incredulous.

Harry’s smiling, he’s alight with it, with being able to hearing those words, with being able to say them and not be afraid Zayn’s going to run and hide, not have to keep secret how much he means them. He made Zayn this happy. He was kissing Zayn. He has this, after so long, despite the odds. No spell could ever make him feel like this, like coming home. “I love you too.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Haz.” Zayn’s voice is breathy, and Harry’s sure he’s never heard a better sound than that, the way Zayn’s voice changes when Harry’s straddling his thighs, kissing him. Like he’s sure he’s never felt anything better than Zayn’s lips on his neck, trailing over his jaw, his Adam’s apple, like he’s exploring; how his hands slide cautiously over Harry’s back. Harry’s dreamed of this, or forced himself not to dream of it; has imagined Zayn’s hands for years, and now the reality is so much better.

“Harry,” Zayn says again, and Harry makes a sound that he hopes registers his discontent that Zayn isn’t kissing him anymore. “Harry, is this okay?”

He interrupted their kissing just to ask that? Harry huffs out a breath, but he opens his eyes, and that’s worth it. The sight of Zayn, his lips slick and pink, his hair messy, his cheeks flushed, his eyes wide…Harry’s pretty sure he’s actually glowing. Maybe that’s some veela magic.

“Harry,” Zayn says for a third time, and Harry blinks. It’s hard to concentrate on anything, with Zayn looking like this. With Zayn feeling like this under him, like all his dreams come true.  

“I think we can safely assume anything you do to me is okay,” Harry tells him, and leans back down to kiss him again.

He knows it’s the wrong thing to say almost as soon as he says it, but he's certain of that when Zayn’s lips don’t move under his, and he’s pushing at Harry again, pushing him away. Harry goes. It’s hard, and he thinks maybe he is a bit caught in Zayn’s bewitchment because it’s never been this hard to stop kissing someone, but he goes when Zayn pushes. He knows it’s the only way they can work.

“We can’t.” Zayn still looks like sin, but his face is serious now. “We really can’t assume that, Harry. You know that.”

“I know, I was just—” Harry tries to focus. It’s hard, when they’ve been snogging for what feels like hours, and before that Zayn was sipping his wine and turning his lips red and their feet were pressed together under the table at dinner. It’s been three blissful weeks, and Harry’s not pushing, but he feels like he’s going to explode whenever Zayn touches him. “You make me stupid. Not in a bewitchment way. In a your face way.”

It gets Zayn to grin, glancing down as he does. He never did know how to take a compliment.

“Still.” He looks up. “We can’t assume. I might not know, if I lose control. You’ve got to tell me the second you feel it starting. The second, Harry.”

“I know.” Harry does. He knows they’re complicated. They’ve always been complicated, and this is even more so. It’s been three blissful weeks, but it’s also been three weeks of having to live with the fact that everyone is always looking at his boyfriend. With finding a way to manage the jealousy that flares just a bit every time someone starts to flirt with him, even though Harry knows perfectly well that Zayn doesn’t mean it. With relearning each other, how Zayn’s touch is more tentative than Harry’d imagined it would be but feels infinitely better, how Harry has to keep himself from pushing because he wants everything but he knows better than to demand that of Zayn like so many have.

So yeah. He knows they’re complicated. And he knows one of those complications is how easy it would be for Zayn to overwhelm him completely, for him to lose himself in this man. How he’s not even sure he cares.

“I—sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Harry kisses him again, for being stupid. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out.” He kisses him again then, because he likes the sounds Zayn makes into his mouth, how his fingers dig into Harry’s back and he arches into him. “How did you deal with it with the other people?”

“Other people?” Zayn blinks, slow and confused, and Harry smiles to himself. He looks as befuddled as Harry’s ever felt. It makes Harry feel good enough that he gets out his clarification easily.

“Other people you’ve shagged.”

There’s a pause. A long pause. Where Zayn doesn’t move, and Harry doesn’t move because he’s not sure what’s happening.

“Zayn?” he asks at last. Zayn’s hands are still on him, so he doesn’t think he’s done something wrong, pushed too far. But Zayn’s biting his lip, not meeting Harry’s gaze either.

“I, like.” Zayn’s got that jut to his jaw that comes with defensiveness. “Never had the chance to deal with it before.”

Harry sits back again, so he can look at Zayn properly. “What?”

“I’ve never had reason to figure it out before,” Zayn mutters, the words slurring together so fast Harry almost doesn’t understand them.

But only almost. Because he understands them. He thinks. “Really? You haven’t…?” Harry’d been sure he had. He could have anyone in the world, even without bewitchment. Harry had assumed…or well, he’d tried not to think about it, not for the past few years, because it got painful to think about, but… He thinks he’s been stupefied, he can’t think.

“How was I supposed to?” Zayn snaps. He’s trying to pull away, his hands falling from Harry’s shoulders. No. That’s wrong. “When I couldn’t know if they really wanted to?”

“But—” Harry takes a deep breath. Okay. Not what he expected. But it makes sense, of course it does. Of course Zayn, who avoided Harry rather than risk bewitching him into a relationship, who lives his life caught between the people who fear him and those who force themselves at him, wouldn’t let himself. Harry’s heart is breaking for Zayn all over again. “You want to? It’s like, something that you’re interested in? At some point, not necessarily now?”

“Yeah. Clearly.” Zayn’s shrinking back into himself, his shoulders hunching. Trying to disappear, to fade away. “I know I should have told you, but I’m already difficult enough…”

“You aren’t difficult.” That much Harry knows. Complicated, but not difficult. Being with Zayn is the easiest thing he’s ever done, like falling for him wasn’t even an effort. Zayn brings him tea after work and lets Harry play with his kittens and laughs at Harry’s worst jokes. Zayn touches Harry like he’s a wonder. Zayn never lets himself have anything, and Harry just wants to give him everything. “Why would I care?”

“It’s another weird thing about me. I’m twenty—”

“It’s not weird,” Harry cuts him off again.

“It is,” Zayn protests, because he’s stubborn even in this. “I don’t know what to do. I’ll probably be horrible. On top of everything—”

“You won’t be. You couldn’t be.” Harry brushes the back of his hand over Zayn’s cheek. His skin’s always impossibly, probably magically, soft. “Not to me.”

“That’s sort of the problem.” Zayn’s smile is lopsided, bitter. “I probably can’t keep control anyway, so you won’t know how bad it is.”

“We’ll be careful.” Harry nudges at Zayn’s cheek with his nose until Zayn has to look up, then he kisses him again. If Zayn didn’t respond, if he pulled away, Harry would let him go, would have gotten of him and they’d have listened to some music and cuddled and Harry would have jerked off later, probably to the thought of being Zayn’s first, of ruining Zayn for everyone else in the world so he’d never want anyone else. But Zayn does respond, his lips moving under Harry’s, more of those breathy sounds getting caught between their mouths.

“Hell, Zayn.” Harry trails his lips down Zayn’s jaw. “Bloody hell, you—can we—”

“If you’re sure.” Zayn’s voice sounds shaky. Harry manages to stop touching him enough to meet his eyes. His glazed, big eyes.

“If you’re sure,” he counters. “I’m sure if you are. This isn’t—no pressure.”

“Yeah. No. I want—yeah,” Zayn says, and Harry really will explode now.

“Bed, then. We deserve a bed.”

Zayn snorts. “Have to get off me if you want me to move.”

“You’re not going to carry me to bed?” Harry teases, “Or even levitate me?” Zayn makes to get up anyway, so Harry reluctantly stands, pulls at Zayn until he stands up. That ends up with them just snogging more, Zayn’s hands on Harry’s neck and in his hair like he’s trying to pull him closer, into him; Harry’s hands on Zayn’s waist to anchor him, keep him here with Harry.

They make it to Zayn’s bedroom eventually, their lips still attached, and then Harry’s landing on his back with Zayn on top of him this time. Harry props himself up on his elbows so he can look at him, and Zayn’s looking at him back, his brow furrowed like it always got when presented with a particularly tough Ancient Runes diagram.

“You good?”

Zayn nods, then reaches out, trails a finger down Harry’s jaw, to his chest where his shirt is lying open. It raises goosebumps with just the touch. “This okay?”

“Yeah.” Harry’s voice is a little shaky, but he’d dare anyone to sound normal with Zayn Malik sat on their lap looking at them like he wants to take them apart, but doesn’t quite know how.

Zayn strokes over his chest, then he’s at the buttons of Harry’s shirt. He fumbles with them a little, and it makes Harry feel a little better, a little more in control. Zayn might be the overwhelming one, but Harry’s the one who knows what to do. Balanced. Like they always are.

He gets all the buttons open, then pushes the shirt aside, so he can study Harry’s stomach, his chest. Just his gaze makes Harry shiver, his cock twitch. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to last through this, other than willpower to make Zayn’s first time the best it can be. Maybe veela magic gives their partner extra-human stamina, that would be a nice and probably necessary side effect.

“Zayn?” Harry prompts, when Zayn’s still just looking at him.

Zayn gives him a fleeting smile, then he’s tracing at Harry’s chest, over to his nipple, his touch light as a feather but burning as a incendio charm. “This okay?”

“Ye—yeah.” They both watch Zayn’s finger, watch as it circles Harry’s nipple, a little more pressure now; watch as it hardens. Then Zayn’s hands are moving over Harry’s ribs, his abs, that same gentle, tentative exploration, and it’s the best sort of torture and Zayn is—well, he’s adorable, is the word for it, the concentration on his face, the way his hair’s falling into his eyes.

The exploration is slow, torturous, and Harry bites his lip and tries not to combust as Zayn’s hands drag down, over his stomach, tracing his belly button, down over his laurels, to the edge of his jeans. Then the tips of his fingers duck lower, and Harry can’t hold back his moan.

Zayn looks up. He doesn’t look surprised—he might be a virgin, but he’s not a blushing one, Harry knows—but there’s a hint of worried. “This okay?”

“Very,” Harry gets out, and Zayn’s smile is surprisingly sweet. Harry returns it with his own smile, which he suspects is more a smirk than anything. “It would be better if you had your shirt off too. If you—like, if you want—” But Zayn’s pulling off his shirt, and Harry cuts himself off because he has better things to do, like shamelessly ogle Zayn. He’s done it before, stolen glances and tried not to feel like he was just like all those other people who take advantage of Zayn, but he’s allowed to now. Allowed to take in the lean muscle, the smooth skin, the way his tattoos move sinuously against him and how his nipples are hard, just from touching Harry. Harry’s never lacked in self-confidence, but Zayn—Zayn is perfect, actually genetically perfect, and suddenly Harry is feeling all the extra weight he has on his stomach, all the places where he’s disproportionate or weird looking.

“Stop it.” Zayn’s leaning over him again, one hand on the bed next to Harry’s head, the other tucking a lock of hair behind his ear.

“Stop what?”

“Whatever you were thinking.” Zayn gives a lopsided smile. “I know you as well as you know me, babe. You’re not the only one who wants to make their boyfriend happy.”

“You do.” That’s never been the issue.

“I’m not now. It’s—” Zayn shakes his head. “You’re beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful,” Harry counters, because it’s true. This time he’s the one who trails his hand down Zayn’s side, over his ribs, watches the goosebumps follow him. Watches as Zayn’s breath catches. Harry’s the first one touching him like this. It’s heady, terrifying.

Zayn swallows. “Yeah, but—I can’t not be.” He bites his lip, formulating, and Harry lets him, even if maybe he’d say this isn’t the best place for a conversation and they could be doing other things. “I,” Zayn continues, then he’s kissing Harry’s jaw, his neck. “I’m like, programmed for this. It’s, that doesn’t matter, really. You’re just you.” He kisses Harry’s chin, on what seems like accident, then his chest, between his swallows. “And that’s beautiful.”

Merlin, but Harry loves him. Loves the sincerity in his voice and affection in his eyes. “Zayn,” he breathes, and Zayn just looks at him, almost too intent, those big eyes that Harry could drown in, hazel and starlit and golden all at once, and Harry just needs them needs to lose himself in them, he could keep Zayn—

Then Zayn’s sitting back, against Harry’s thighs, and his fingers are back where they were, on the button of Harry’s jeans. “This okay?”

Harry takes a breath. It’s gone. It’s just Zayn, staring at the bulge in his jeans, and that’s plenty. “Yeah.”

Zayn opens his jeans slowly, tugs them off even slower, though Harry tries to help and probably hinders him more than anything. Zayn’s hands trail back up Harry’s legs, the same exploration as he’d had over his chest, cool fingers on his calves and thighs and Harry’s aching already, more than he should be from this, and he doesn’t care if it’s the bewitchment or Zayn.

Then Zayn’s at his boxers, looking at the snitch pattern with a quirk of his lips.

“They’re very comfortable,” Harry says. Zayn snorts, and doesn’t look up. His hair is falling over his face just enough that Harry can’t quite see his expression.

“’m sure.” Zayn murmurs, and gets a hand in the elastic of Harry’s boxers. “This okay?”

“Yes,” Harry hisses, because he’s not sure he can do anything else, and then his boxers are off and he’s naked. Somehow, it hits him then, when he’s naked and Zayn’s looking at his dick in that concentrated, interested fashion—he’s having sex with Zayn. He’s going to have sex with Zayn, and it’s going to be Zayn’s first time. The mere thought of it makes his dick twitch, and Zayn’s shoulders move.

“You okay?” Harry asks.

“Yeah.” With infinite care, Zayn licks his lips, and bends down. “This okay?”

Merlin’s bloody trousers. “So very yes,” Harry chokes, and then Zayn’s lips are on his cock and Harry’s whole body shudders with it. He’s tentative, the way he touches Harry, licks at it, but his lips are smooth and impossibly warm and it’s Zayn’s mouth on his cock, he could come just from the thought of that—has, even. It’s enough Harry could cry, when he backs away.

“I don’t—I want to make this good,” Zayn mutters, and then he’s looking up at Harry through his lashes. “I know you’ve had really good blow jobs, I don’t know—”

“Anything you do will be amazing,” Harry promises. Then adds, in case, “Just no teeth. What you think you’d like.”

Zayn bites at his lip—his pink pouty lips, that were already on Harry, fucking hell. “Tell me if I’m doing anything wrong.”

“You won’t,” Harry promises. “But you don’t have to—”

“Shut up, Harry,” Zayn orders, and Harry does, more because he’s gone back to sucking Harry off then because he told Harry to.

If Harry could think, could parse it out, he might think it’s not nearly the best blow job he’s ever had, sloppy and the pressure’s wrong and Zayn doesn’t touch his balls, and Harry doesn’t give a damn about any of that, because somehow it doesn’t matter. It’s Zayn and he’s enthusiastic and Harry tries to choke out guidance when he can, but he’s too caught in Zayn and the look in his eyes when he glances up and his messy hair and his hollowed out cheeks. Harry just wants him, wants him to learn and be comfortable with this and to make him happy, and then Zayn gives him another one of those looks and Harry swears and moans out,

“Zayn, stop.”

Zayn does immediately, and suddenly he’s not touching Harry at all somehow. “Shit, I must have slipped—I’m sorry—”

“No. No. No.” Harry forces a fist to unclench, so he can touch Zayn’s cheek, tangle his fingers in his hair, make him look at Harry. “No, it’s not—I just didn’t want to come yet.”

“Oh.” Zayn grins at that, and he’s—Harry’s pretty sure he actually is glowing this time, or maybe it’s just in Harry’s head, but he’s definitely beaming, all swollen lips and dark eyes.

“How do you want to do this?” In the meantime, Harry sits up, tugs Zayn back towards him. He hasn’t gotten to touch Zayn nearly enough. Hasn’t gotten to taste him.

“Um. Hm. You. Fuck,” Zayn swears, and Harry grins into his collarbone, where he’d been nibbling a line from Zayn’s ear down. “I think it’d be—shit, Harry—um—you’d best fuck me, I think. If that’s okay.”

“If you want.” Harry doesn’t care, as long as he gets to revel in Zayn’s skin, in Zayn being so close, in the little sounds Zayn makes when he circles his nipples with his tongue.

“No, Harry.” Zayn’s hands are on his cheeks, forcing Harry to stop what he was doing and look at Zayn. Zayn’s face, halfway between searching and sex-addled. If Zayn was trying to make him focus on what he was saying, that wasn't the way to do it. “Do you want to?”

“I want you every way,” Harry confesses, because it seems silly not to. Because he can. “But yeah, we can start with that.”

Zayn laughs, and Harry takes that opportunity to flip them, so Zayn’s on his back and Harry can hover over him this time. “Do you have…”

Zayn’s flush as he gestures to the nightstand is very cute, so cute Harry has to kiss where it rises on his cheeks. “Hopeful?”

Zayn shakes his head. “Wishful. Lonely.”

“Not anymore.” Harry pauses through getting the lube and condom to kiss Zayn again, firmly. Zayn arches into it, his head coming off the pillows to linger on Harry’s mouth.

It’s so easy to get lost in kissing Zayn, in his mouth and their bare chests pressed together, that it takes Harry a few minutes to remember what he was doing. Even when he pulls away from Zayn, his head’s cloudy, and it takes him another second to remember words.

“Have you done this before?” he asks, finally retrieving everything from the nightstand.

“To myself, yeah. Sometimes.” Zayn’s got that defensive look on, and Harry smiles as soothingly as he knows how.

“Just checking.” Harry flicks at his nose, because Zayn needs to smile again. He wants Zayn glowing. “Tell me if anything doesn’t feel right.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“I always worry about you,” Harry replies, honestly, kisses Zayn before he can protest, then gets to taking Zayn’s pants off.

He opens Zayn up slowly, not to tease but because it’s different, someone else doing it to you, more fingers and deeper. And a little bit to tease, because Zayn’s face goes slack and Harry thinks he stops breathing the first time Harry properly finds his prostate, and he’s grinding his hips down on Harry seemingly unconsciously, and Harry needs to make him happy. He’s so gorgeous like this, needs to have him like this, needs to make up for so many people, needs to show that this can be more than a thing people demand from him. Needs Zayn.

He gets to three fingers, stretching him well, when Zayn pants out an almost petulant, “I’m ready, fuck, Harry, just—”

Harry scrambles to obey, because he’s been ready for ages and he gets this when he never thought he would and just—Zayn, on his back on his bed, waiting for Harry, smiling at Harry, glowing with arousal and need for Harry just Harry.

He pushes in slowly, pausing to watch Zayn’s face contort, then smooth out as he gets used to the pressure. “Okay?” he asks, trying for gentle. He has to be gentle. He won’t be anything else, no matter how much he wants.

“Yeah. Just.” Zayn’s face twists again, then he takes a deep breath. “Okay.”  

“Here, get your legs higher, it’ll help.” Harry pulls up on Zayn’s legs, and pushes in farther. He’s trying to think of anything but how he’s inside Zayn, how hot and tight he is, how he’s the first person Zayn’s trusted enough to do this with, how beautiful Zayn looks and feels and is and how much he wants this to be good for him.

“You okay?” Zayn asks this time, his voice tight.

“Am I okay?” Harry echoes.

“You’ve got this…face.”

Harry manages to laugh through the last remnants of his control. “You just feel really good.” He presses a kiss to the closest part of Zayn, which happens to be his ankle.

“Oh.” That same pleased smile, and Zayn’s hips shift. Harry hisses out a breath. “Yeah, I’m. I’m good. Move, Harry.”

“Thank fuck,” Harry mutters, and he does, rocking his hips slowly, gently at first, to get Zayn used to it, then harder, as Zayn’s breath starts coming faster, as he starts to move with Harry, his hands on Harry’s shoulders, like he’s drawing him closer. Harry pulls out enough to thrust back in, and Zayn moans, so Harry does it again, and again, and then he knows he finds Zayn’s prostate again because Zayn’s groan rips out of him and his back arches and—

And Zayn is glowing now, glowing in Harry’s mind, and Harry needs to make him feel good and Zayn’s murmuring praise and it’s making all of Harry’s nerves shiver and heat. Zayn is gorgeous underneath him, his face alight and whole body wracked with pleasure, and he’s literally inhuman in his beauty, all pretense gone so it’s just the silver core of him, that dragon heartstring core that shines out of him. He’ll do whatever Zayn wants, he’ll show him he can be the best the only one Zayn will ever need and Zayn is telling him that, or just his name, and it’s like a feedback loop of pleasure and need and Harry fucks him harder, faster, gets a hand around Zayn’s cock to eke pleasure out of him however Harry can. He could go forever like this, forever or as long as Zayn needs, lost in the clouded dream of Zayn Zayn Zayn—

Then Zayn moans Harry’s name, and it’s like the pleasure hits Harry too, the pleasure of having done this for Zayn, as Zayn comes all over his hand. It washes over Harry like sheer heat and he’s coming too from the force of it, his pleasure and Zayn’s and everything crashing through him until he’s spent, everything in him drained.

He falls onto the bed next to Zayn. The dreaminess is gone, that pleasure-haze; this afterglow he’s used to, if multiplied a thousand times.

“Harry?” Zayn murmurs. Harry manages to open his eyes. Zayn’s not glowing anymore, or maybe it’s just tucked into him, under his skin where it usually lives. Now it’s just the Zayn Harry’s used to, still too beautiful but not inhumanly so. “You okay?”

“I think you killed me.” Harry tells the pillow. “How is your mum still alive, if it’s like this every time?”

“Are you seriously talking about my parents after we just shagged?” Zayn asks, laughing, and Harry rolls over so he can look at Zayn properly. He’s stretched out on the bed, all sinful, satisfied languor, like he’s comfortable in his body for once. Harry gave him that. He’s like that because of Harry. Harry always wants to keep him like this, smiling and relaxed.

“I’m just saying. That was a lot.”

Zayn’s smile recedes, and he glances away. “Too much? We don’t—”

“Not too much,” Harry interrupts. “Do I look like it was too much?”

“I lost control. At the end.”

“Trust me. I noticed.” Zayn’s still not looking at Harry, and he just—he wants to sooth away that worry, wants to kiss him until he smiles again, but he can’t—he doesn’t want to push. Not even now. “Was it—are you okay?”

“Yeah!” Zayn looks up at that, surprised. “Yeah, that was—yeah.”

“What you expected?” Harry can’t help but ask.

“Better,” Zayn tells him, and Harry feels lit up again, except there’s no magic in it this time.

“Do you—I mean, I’m a cuddler, usually.”

“I’m not surprised.” Zayn laughs, and scoots closer, resting his head on Harry’s chest. The chill of his skin is soothing, somehow. “I expect I am too.” He presses his lips to Harry’s shoulder, over where one of his swallows is flapping idly.

Harry runs a hand through his hair, the dark tangled locks. He should say something, something to make sure Zayn’s okay after his first time.

“It does matter.”  

“Hm?” Zayn hums against his skin.

“What you said, before—you’re beautiful. Not because of, you know, your grandmother. Because you’re you.” Harry smiles back at Zayn, when he looks up with big eyes. Like he’s never heard that before. Or maybe never believed it, that there could be more than his body and his magic to why people want him, because there isn’t, for all those people who get caught in his spell. “Inside and out. I could get a Pensieve and go into your head and it’d still be beautiful.”

It’s so ridiculously sappy, but Zayn is looking at him like he’s the only thing in the whole world, like how Harry feels when he’s caught in Zayn’s bewitchment, when he looks at Zayn.

Zayn ducks his head again, but this time it’s to press a kiss to Harry’s chest, right over his heart. When he lifts his head, he’s smiling again, that beaming, overwhelming grin that lights him up from the inside, without anything to do with magic. “So, how long are you going to need to sleep before we can do that again?”

Harry snorts out a laugh, and gets a hand on Zayn’s head to pull him close and kiss him again. “I don’t need sleep.”  


	7. Chapter 7

“And if it ever gets to much, I should be able to, like override him. Come find me, and—”

“Zayn,” Harry cuts him off. This is maybe the fourth time Zayn’s told him this since he got to Zayn’s so they could Apparate to his parents’ together. Along with all the other warnings that Harry knows, because he’s been friends with Zayn for years and been dating him for months and he knows the precautions to take. “Zayn, it’s fine.”

“It could be,” Zayn agrees, but he sounds skeptical even admitting that much. There are wrinkles in his forehead, the kind he gets when he’s stressed out and falling into his head. This is supposed to be a step, if not fun then meaningful—Harry doesn’t want Zayn to feel like this about him meeting Zayn’s parents. Officially.

“What are you so worried about, anyway?” Harry asks, catching Zayn’s wrist before he can take out his wand. “Aren’t I supposed to be the one who’s scared to meet my boyfriend’s parents?”

Zayn's lips twist into a wry smile. “They already love you, you don’t have anything to be worried about it.”

It makes Harry grin. He’s not nervous, not really—or at least he’s not nervous enough to let Zayn see it, when Zayn’s been so stressed about this. But it’s still nice to hear. As nice as knowing that Zayn’s talked about him enough that they know him to like him.

“Then what’s wrong? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be worried about?” Harry lets his hand slide down Zayn’s arm, to his shoulder. He can feel the muscles there shifting as Zayn moves, shrugs, and—does not get distracted. Just because Harry’s still making up for years of pining and Zayn for years of celibacy doesn’t mean they’re absolutely insatiable. “They love me. I’ve met them, or your mum at least. You’ve got this so much easier than most.”

Zayn’s smile twists, goes bitter. “Most people don’t have to worry about their boyfriend getting bewitched by their dad.”

Harry snorts, he can’t help it. “Well. Some fathers are very attractive,” he observes primly, and Zayn’s smile relaxes a little. “I’ve met your sisters, Zayn, and you. I’ll be fine.”

“He’s not…” Zayn shakes his head, and runs a hand through his hair. He still hasn’t pulled away from Harry though, so he’ll take that as a win. “He’s half, it’s even worse than me. Like, there’s a reason he stays home a lot, you know? He can’t control it as well as me and the girls can.”

“It’ll be fine,” Harry repeats. That’s not exactly comforting, he has to say—he doesn’t want to embarrass himself by getting bewitched by his boyfriend’s dad—but Zayn doesn’t need to hear that now. “You should be worrying about what you’re going to do when my mum starts hitting on you when we see her.”

Zayn makes a face at that, and Harry moves his hand to the back of Zayn’s neck, tilting his head up so he can kiss him. It’s still overwhelming to kiss Zayn, even casually like this. His lips are always soft and perfect, the little breath that comes out of him whenever Harry nips at his lower lip  “It’ll be fine,” he murmurs into Zayn’s mouth, and feels Zayn relax, at least enough to kiss him back.

////

It is fine. Mostly, at least. Trisha greets Harry with a hug, same as she does with Zayn, and ushers them into the kitchen, where Yaser is waiting.

It hits Harry then, strong and almost overwhelming, and Zayn wasn’t lying it is stronger than Zayn’s bewitchment. He’s larger than his son, bulkier, less of Zayn’s lithe grace and more of an enticing strength, but the fine bones and just—the handsomeness is there, and Harry can feel the magic catching hold of him, how much he wants to impress to worship he’ll do—

“Harry.” There are hands on him, forcing him to look elsewhere, to look at Zayn. Zayn. Zayn with his big gold eyes that Harry can lose himself in, can find himself in.

He takes a breath, and firms up his willpower, and looks back at Yaser.

He’s still handsome, with a mischievous little smirk on like he knows what he’d done, one that looks uncannily like his son’s when he’d been up to something. But it’s not magical this time. It’s just a handsome man, with a handsome son Harry loves. Who clearly knows what just happened, just like Zayn’s mum does, given how she’s smiling too.

Harry swallows. It’s lucky he’s not easily embarrassed. “Hi, I’m Harry,” he tells Yaser, holding out the hand Zayn’s not holding tight. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Malik.”

Yaser takes his hand. His skin, like his son’s, is cool to the touch, and somehow both soft and firm. “And you too, Harry.” He shoots a sidelong look at his son. “At last.”

“Dad,” Zayn whines, and Yaser grins. It’s another shock, the bright flash of his smile, but it’s easier now that Harry’s expecting it, and has Zayn’s hand in his.

“I’ve just heard so much about him.” Yaser lets go of Harry’s hand to pull Zayn into a hug. Zayn goes willingly, releasing Harry to embrace his father tightly. Harry watches with interest. He’s seen Zayn with his mother, the affection there; has seen Zayn with his sisters at school all the time, the teasing love and fierce protectiveness that binds all four of them together. But though Zayn’s always talked with utmost respect and love about his father, he’s never seen them together.

“It’s good to see you, beta,” Yaser murmurs, almost too low for Harry to hear. But he can hear the smile in Zayn’s voice—and more than that, the ease, the ease he’s only ever had with the other boys—when he replies,

“You too.”

////

Dinner is…interesting. They go out, at Zayn’s parents insistence that they treat the boys to a proper meal, “because we know how much money Zayn makes and you can’t make much more,” as Trisha said. Harry’s been out with Zayn before, obviously, and knows what that’s like, how he pulls up his hood and ducks his head, doesn’t make eye contact. With his father—it’s more than doubled. Harry can only wonder what it’s like when all the Malik children are home, because even with just the two of them, all the lack of eye contact in the world won’t help. People’s heads turn, the waitress gapes for a solid minute before Trisha gently urges her out of it. Zayn goes to the bathroom and comes back quiet in a way that means something happened, makes Harry shift closer to him and set a comforting hand on his thigh. And those are the muggles—there’s a couple a table a few meters away from them who are giving them sidelong, knowing looks, sneering when Zayn and Yaser get deserts for free. Though it doesn’t escape Harry’s attention how predatory the woman’s stare is.

After, Yaser and Tricia apparate back, and Zayn slips his hand into Harry’s to show him around the town. There’s not much about Zayn Harry doesn’t know, after living on top of each other for seven years at school, but Harry’s never seen Zayn in this place. Seen where he’d run with his friends, where he’d skinned his knee riding a broomstick, where he’d smoked his first cigarette, where his first charm with a stolen wand had backfired and nearly blown him up. Harry laughs at that story, responds with his own about how he’d tried to bewitch his cat to speak and had turned it green and possibly on its way into a plant before his mum had intervened.

He’s just finishing up the story when they pass an alley, and Zayn slows. Harry mainly notices because Zayn’s attention is clearly elsewhere, and Zayn almost always humors Harry’s stories, even if he makes fun of them, but once he sees it it’s obvious how Zayn’s glancing at the alley.

“What happened there?” Harry asks, nudging Zayn with his hip. “More baby Zayn hijinks?”

Zayn bites at his lip, shakes his head. “Nah, like. Nothing.”

It’s so very clearly not nothing Harry almost laughs. “What happened?” he asks again, taking another step forward so he can turn around and grab both of Zayn’s hands, swinging them back and forth. “Illicit potion making? Did you keep an illegal hippogriff here? A dragon! Zayn, were you breeding dragons in this alley? If you have pet dragons—”

Zayn’s laughing, like Harry meant him to. “Shut up, Harry, bloody hell.” Harry grins in satisfaction. Until Zayn’s laughter slides off his face. “No, it’s just, like. Had my first kiss here.”

Harry would make some sort of expression of the cuteness of the image, younger Zayn with his chubby cheeks and some other kid that in his head looks suspiciously like himself as a child, blushing as their lips brush, but the expression on Zayn’s face isn’t something to coo at. “Not good?”

Zayn shakes his head. “I was eight. She was, like, a couple years older? Not creepy older, but, older. And, I just…I didn’t know what it meant before that, you know? How people looked at me. Didn’t know after that really either, but it was the first I really…” he pauses, looking for the words. Harry lets him, holding tight to his hands. “The first I really got what I was. The, like, dangers of it.” He doesn’t even look sad about it, or angry, or any of the other things Harry thinks he would be, if their situations were reversed—the things Harry is now, for the child Zayn was.

Then Zayn swallows, like he’s pushing that back. “Anyway, we should—”

“Come here.” Harry tugs, and pulls at Zayn until he follows him into the alley.

“Haz? I—”

“We’re making better memories here,” Harry tells him, and pushes him towards the wall, where he can kiss him properly, like Zayn deserves to be kissed—like Zayn should always be kissed, deeply and tenderly and fiercely, everything Harry feels in it, all the ways he wishes he could make up for how Zayn’s been treated all his life. Zayn kisses him back immediately, like he’s just as intent as Harry to do this, to rebrand this place with a good memory.  

They kiss until Harry’s head starts feeling fuzzy, until he’s not sure where his desire for Zayn and his magic starts and ends, until he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop if he goes on a moment longer. Then Harry pulls back, enough that he can look at Zayn.

Zayn looks as dazed as Harry feels, his lips swollen pink, his cheeks flushed. Every time Harry sees him, he’s the most beautiful he’s ever been, and now is no exception, with how he blinks at Harry, like he can’t believe this happened.

“There.” Harry brushes a lock of Zayn’s hair out of his face, and tries to pretend he doesn’t feel as sappy as he knows he looks. “Now you’ll have that to think of here.”

Zayn catches his hand. He’s still just staring at Harry like he’s never seen him before, like he can’t comprehend him. Like he’s something so infinitely precious and valuable Zayn wouldn’t dare touch. Harry recognizes that look. He’s felt it on his own face enough, when he looks at Zayn. “Haz…” he trails off, and Harry lets him. He doesn’t need whatever Zayn has to say, when he’s got Harry’s hand caught between both of his, when he’s looking at Harry like that.

Finally, Zayn lets Harry’s hand drop, straightens off the wall. “Okay. That’s enough here.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, and takes Zayn’s hand properly this time, intertwining their fingers. “I’m sure there are more places here to give you good memories in.”

“Or we could go back and see how well we fit in my childhood bed,” Zayn points out, and Harry makes a mild effort not to shudder at the thought of that.

“Yeah, that’s better. Let’s go.”

Zayn laughs, and lets Harry pull him out of the alley.

—

Harry wakes up before Zayn, of course. He’s not sure he’s ever woken up after him. He considers just staying in bed, entwined with Zayn like was necessary to both fit on Zayn’s twin, but as much as he loves cuddling with Zayn, once he’s awake he’s awake. So he untangles himself from Zayn’s clutching limbs, which is easier said than done, then slips out of bed.

Zayn makes a little snuffling sound, then shifts to take up the rest of the bed. Harry can’t help but smile, looking at him. He doesn’t quite look human like this; maybe even less human than he ever does waking, as he’s not making any effort at control. Something about him shines, but it’s not as, well. Overwhelming as it can be, awake. It’s beautiful, of course, more pretty than anyone should be when asleep, but there’s nothing aggressive about it. There’s just Zayn, soft and open, and Harry’s allowed to see this. To see Zayn when he’s most vulnerable, in a way that’s a real danger to Zayn.

Harry leans down, presses a kiss to Zayn’s forehead, runs his finger over the line of Zayn’s cheek. Zayn stirs a little, makes another little breathy sound, and Harry doesn’t really want to wake him up so he moves his hand, and heads to the shower.

When he gets out, Zayn’s out of bed, and Harry can hear voices downstairs, so Harry throws on some robes and heads down.

He finds Trisha in the kitchen first, some pancake batter whisking itself as she works on the eggs. She smiles at him when he comes in, and Zayn is so like his father but Harry see now that his smile is Trisha’s. “Good morning.”

“Morning.” Harry glances around the kitchen. “Need any help?”

“No, I’ve got it covered.”

“Are you sure?” Harry gives his most wheedling smile. “I’m here to help.” And to endear himself to Zayn’s parents. He wants to do this again. Wants to do it with all the Maliks here, to be part of this.

“You’re a guest, don’t be silly.” She waves her wand, and the burner under the kettle flicks on. “You’re a tea drinker, right? I’ll have some ready in a moment.”

“You really don’t—”

“Shush. It’s my pleasure, really.” Harry can tell when an argument is hopeless, and he knows the tone in Trisha’s voice, both from arguments with his own mother and with Zayn, which is oedipal in a way he doesn’t want to consider. So he lets it go, and instead he wanders over to the doorway, where he can hear the faint sound of Zayn’s voice.

Zayn’s in the living room, sitting on the couch next to where his father’s sitting in his armchair. They’ve both got sections of the Daily Prophet open in front of them, and they’re talking quietly about something in it. It looks like it should be on a magazine ad somewhere, the two inhumanly gorgeous men, flipping through their papers. Zayn’s still in his pajamas, a beanie pulled over his hair, and Harry knows he’s smiling stupidly at him, but he can’t help it. Doesn’t want to, really. He gets this. Gets to see Zayn like this. Gets to love Zayn like this, and be loved.

“We were so happy to hear about the two of you.” Harry jumps when Trisha speaks behind him.

She’s looking around Harry, at the picture her husband and son make too. “We were worried—he’d been lonely, for so long. You boys were great friends, but he’d been so resistant to even trying for a relationship…” she shakes her head. “It’s easy for them to be alone. And so very bad for him.”

“Well, I won’t let that happen.” It feels like a promise, like a vow. But he means it. He means it so much. All that ugliness pointed at Zayn, and he wants to stop as much of it as possible. Wants to let Zayn be the Zayn Harry fell in love with.

“I know. That’s why we were glad it’s you.” She rests her hand lightly on his arm, comforting, encouraging. “You understand what he’s up against, what both of you are up against. You aren’t going to run away.”

Harry looks down at her. She understands what it’s like, better than anyone else, for a human to love someone who’s part veela. She’s done it all, and she’s still smiling at her husband like they’re in love.

“Does it get easier?” he asks, looking away from her back at the men reading their papers. The sun’s fell on them both, and it’s like they’re shining, glittering with it. Neither of them are probably holding too tight to their control here. “All the…” he trails off, but Trisha nods thoughtfully. She gets it.

“No.” It’s a simple, blunt answer. “It doesn’t. It’s not easy, to be with him. It never has been. But…” she squeezes his arm, still looking at her husband and son. Harry hopes he looks as loving as she does, in twenty years. “It’s so worth it.” She lets go of his arm, to pat it once more. “Now I’ll get you that tea.”

She turns away. Harry stays looking at Zayn. Watching him read the paper like this, they could be fifteen again, sitting in the Ravenclaw common room, Zayn curled into a chair a bit away from everyone else to escape everyone’s gaze. They could be twenty again, Zayn curled into himself on a bad day, when he was running away from a world that he couldn’t keep out. He can see this in ten years, Zayn shining like a jewel in the sun—a jewel everyone can’t help but want, even if Zayn doesn’t want that. Harry knows that, knows how hard it can be. On Zayn, but he knows he’s not in for anything easy either. Not when he has to watch everyone look at Zayn like that woman had last night, like she wanted nothing more than to throw herself at him; not when it would be so easy for Harry to fall into Zayn and never find himself again.

Zayn must sense Harry’s eyes on him, because he looks up and meets Harry’s eyes with a questioning little smile. A checking in smile, a ‘everything okay, babe?’ smile. Harry grins back, and crosses the room, sitting down on the couch next to him so he can read the paper over Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn’s arm comes around his waist casually, and he’s cooler to the touch than most humans but he’s still the best cuddler Harry’s ever known. He still smiles as he kisses Harry’s cheek absently before he turns the page; he still pauses on an article he knows Harry would be interested in.

Harry presses his lips to Zayn’s jaw, just because it’s there. It won’t be easy. He knows that. There will be plenty of bad days and hard nights. But it’s worth it. So very worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to discuss? Comment or come chat on [ tumblr!](http://zaynandhisboys.tumblr.com/)


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